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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/declining-societal-religious-norms-are-linked-to-rising-youth-anxiety-across-70-countries/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Declining societal religious norms are linked to rising youth anxiety across 70 countries</a>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70157" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Developmental Science</a></em> suggests that shifts in cultural expectations for young people may play a role in rising child and adolescent anxiety rates. Specifically, the research indicates that growing up in societies with declining religious norms tends to be associated with an increase in youth anxiety. These findings provide evidence that community wide beliefs shape youth mental health, hinting at a need to find new ways to offer young people a sense of belonging in the modern world.</p>
<p>Over the past three decades, many societies have changed how they raise children. Cultural expectations have shifted away from community focused values, like obedience, and toward individualistic traits, like personal responsibility. Scientists wanted to understand how these shifting societal values affect the mental well-being of children and teens.</p>
<p>“Around the globe, we see rising numbers in young people being affected by mental health struggles. To be able to stop this concerning trend, it is needed to understand why mental disorders such as anxiety disorders are rising. There has been much research on COVID-19, climate change and wars, which are all relevant factors. We wanted to explore the role of culture and changing expectations towards children and adolescents,” said study author <a href="https://leonardkulisch.github.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Leonard K. Kulisch</a>, a PhD student at Ruhr University Bochum.</p>
<p>Previous research proposed that highly individualistic cultures might harm mental health by creating extreme pressure to succeed. However, most past studies only looked at wealthy Western countries at a single point in time. The researchers aimed to look at global data over several decades to see if changes in parenting goals actually predicted changes in youth anxiety.</p>
<p>Parenting expectations are often called socialization goals, which represent the character traits that adults hope to cultivate in children. These goals provide a window into a culture’s broader values. Some cultures favor an independent orientation that encourages self-expression, while others favor an interdependent orientation that prioritizes social harmony and religious faith.</p>
<p>To explore this topic, the scientists conducted two separate studies. The first study examined large scale societal data across 70 countries from 1989 to 2022. They gathered cultural data from the World Value Survey, which included between 2,400 and 40,230 adult participants per country.</p>
<p>This survey asked adults to choose the qualities they thought were most important to encourage in children. The researchers then compared these cultural values to youth anxiety rates from the Global Burden of Disease database. This health database estimates the number of new anxiety disorder cases per 100,000 children and teens based on clinical records and registries.</p>
<p>The scientists examined whether a shift toward independence related goals predicted rising anxiety. On a global scale, an emphasis on independence did not seem to affect youth mental health. However, the picture looked different in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic nations.</p>
<p>In these specific wealthy nations, a shift toward independence based child rearing provided evidence of a link to higher anxiety rates. The scientists suggest that extreme independence in these modern societies might lead to intense competition and loneliness. In developing nations, a shift toward independence was not linked to more anxiety, likely because these traits currently help drive economic growth and improve overall quality of life.</p>
<p>When examining specific values globally, the scientists found one very consistent pattern. Across all 70 nations, a decrease in the societal emphasis on raising children with religious faith was linked to an increase in youth anxiety. When cultures placed less importance on religion over time, young people experienced more anxiety disorders.</p>
<p>“Previous literature pointed towards broad negative effects of cultural change towards more independent or individualistic values,” Kulisch told PsyPost. “This was indeed relevant for Western populations. The surprising findings was that religiosity (as a specific aspect of more interdependent or collectivistic culture) emerged as important around the world.”</p>
<p>The second study zoomed in on individual families to better understand this connection. The scientists used data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, tracking 3,731 children in the United States. This survey followed the same group of children from age three until age fifteen.</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed how a mother’s personal religious faith compared to the broader religious norms of her community. They then looked at how these two factors related to the child’s anxiety symptoms over time. This approach allowed the researchers to separate the effects of personal family beliefs from the effects of general cultural expectations.</p>
<p>The analysis revealed that the community’s overall religious norms were a stronger predictor of youth anxiety than a mother’s individual religious beliefs. Growing up in a highly religious society seemed to offer a protective mental health effect, regardless of how religious the child’s own family was. Shared religious beliefs likely provide young people with a structured framework for understanding the world, which can reduce uncertainty.</p>
<p>The scientists also used a statistical modeling method to explore the direction of this relationship. This mathematical tool assesses how past levels of one trait can predict later levels of another trait. The model suggested that early childhood religious environments tended to forecast lower anxiety by the time the children reached adolescence.</p>
<p>The reverse relationship was not found in the data. This means that a child’s early anxiety levels did not predict their later religious involvement. The researchers note that religious socialization likely helps children build resilience by fostering a clear sense of purpose and connecting them to a supportive community.</p>
<p>“Cultural expectations towards young people are changing around the globe,” Kulisch said. “A trend towards high emphasis on individual achievement and decrease of social values over the last three decades has likely contributed to high anxiety rates in the Western world. Across all 70 countries in the study, a decrease in religiosity in raising children went along with increases in anxiety disorders among children and adolescents. I believe that the loss of religion in many world regions leaves a gap and young people struggle to find belonging and meaning in the modern world.”</p>
<p>Theories of mental well-being emphasize that personal growth, environmental mastery, and positive relationships are foundational to psychological health. Shared religious practices often naturally promote these traits by offering steady routines, moral guidance, and strong social networks. A religious upbringing can grant young people a clear sense of direction, which acts as a buffer against modern societal pressures.</p>
<p>A common misinterpretation of these findings is that highly religious individuals automatically have better mental health.</p>
<p>“Some outlets shared the study claiming that people who are more religious do better mentally,” Kulisch explained. “Our study does not back such claims. Actually, we find that religiosity within a child’s family is less important than the overall religiosity in the whole population. Large-scale transformations on societal level are important as they potentially shape sources of belonging and meaning.”</p>
<p>“Additionally, the results are across time and within country. That means that changes in religiosity may have effects on mental health. But we cannot claim any between-country or between-person effects based on our study.”</p>
<p>In other words, the findings track how shifting cultural norms within a single society affect its overall anxiety rates over time rather than comparing individual people to one another.</p>
<p>The scientists also point out that the actual effect sizes in this research are relatively small. Youth mental health is complex, and cultural values represent just one piece of a very large puzzle. The studies rely on observational data, meaning the researchers cannot prove that a lack of religion directly causes anxiety.</p>
<p>For future research, the scientists hope to explore how communities can fill the social gap left by declining religious participation. They plan to study alternative ways to foster social connection, such as volunteering, sports clubs, and school programs. Finding new ways to help young people navigate personal challenges could support youth mental health as societies become increasingly secular.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70157" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Cultural Change and Anxiety in Children and Adolescents: Analyzing Socialization Goals Over Three Decades in 70 Countries</a>,” was authored by Leonard Konstantin Kulisch, Ana Lorena Domínguez Rojas, Silvia Schneider, and Babett Voigt.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/longitudinal-study-finds-procrastination-declines-with-age-but-still-shapes-major-life-outcomes-over-nearly-two-decades/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Longitudinal study finds procrastination declines with age but still shapes major life outcomes over nearly two decades</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 17th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>An 18-year-long study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000591"><em>Journal of Personality & Social Psychology</em></a> finds that people tend to procrastinate less as they move through young adulthood.</p>
<p>Research on procrastination has mostly focused on short-term behavior, largely in academic settings and over relatively brief periods. These studies have been useful for identifying what leads people to delay tasks and the immediate consequences for performance and well-being, but they don’t say much about whether procrastination changes across longer stretches of life, or whether it stays fairly constant as people grow older.</p>
<p>It is unclear, then, whether procrastination should be understood primarily as a context-dependent behavior or as a more enduring individual difference.</p>
<p>Lisa Bäulke and colleagues addressed this gap by examining procrastination across the transition from late adolescence into adulthood. They sought to determine whether procrastination shows both stability and change over time, and how it develops alongside broader personality traits. The study was also motivated by the possibility that major life transitions, particularly the shift from education to the workforce, may shape patterns of procrastination. By following individuals over an extended period, the authors sought to clarify whether procrastination decreases with age and whether it has lasting implications for key life outcomes.</p>
<p>The researchers tracked 3,023 individuals in Germany across late adolescence into adulthood over an 18-year period, beginning in their final year of high school. Participants were originally recruited from 149 schools and surveyed repeatedly across eight waves, spaced every two to four years. At each wave, they reported on their procrastination tendencies using a 12-item questionnaire designed to capture delays in task initiation despite knowing action is needed.</p>
<p>Participants also completed personality assessments assessing conscientiousness and neuroticism at multiple timepoints, and reported on their life circumstances: whether they were studying, working, or transitioning between the two. A wide range of later outcomes was also collected, including university completion, grades, income, job promotions, relationship status, parenthood, life satisfaction, health, and even technology use and mental health during COVID-19.</p>
<p>This design allowed the researchers to connect early tendencies to outcomes nearly two decades later, track both average changes in procrastination and individual variation in those trajectories, and account for missing data so that participants with partial data could still contribute.</p>
<p>Bäulke and colleagues found that procrastination showed both stability and change. People’s relative standing held fairly steady, such that those who procrastinated more early on still tended to procrastinate more later, but overall levels dropped over time. So procrastination isn’t fixed; people generally do get better at not putting things off as they age. At the same time, there was meaningful variation in how much individuals changed, suggesting that some people improved more than others.</p>
<p>People who became more conscientious or less neurotic over time tended to show more favorable changes in procrastination. The transition from university into the workforce also played a notable role in these changes. Individuals who entered the workforce after studying tended to show additional decreases in procrastination, suggesting that more structured environments and increased responsibilities may help reduce delaying behaviors. Conversely, higher levels of procrastination were linked to a lower likelihood of making this transition and to delays in entering the workforce, pointing to a reciprocal relationship between life circumstances and self-regulation.</p>
<p>Finally, procrastination was strongly connected to long-term life outcomes. Higher initial levels and less favorable trajectories of procrastination predicted a range of negative consequences years later, including lower academic achievement, less favorable career outcomes such as reduced income or fewer promotions, and differences in relationship and health indicators. These associations extended even to experiences during the pandemic, such as mental health and technology use.</p>
<p>This study reveals that procrastination is not only a short-term habit but a meaningful predictor of how people perform across multiple domains of life over nearly two decades.</p>
<p>Of note is that the study relied on self-report, which can introduce bias. Further, the sample was recruited from one region in Germany, which may limit the generalizability of findings.</p>
<p>The research “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000591">Once a Procrastinator, Always a Procrastinator? Examining Stability, Change, and Long-Term Correlates of Procrastination During Young Adulthood</a>” was authored by Lisa Bäulke, Brent W. Roberts, Benjamin Nagengast, and Ulrich Trautwein.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/womens-desire-for-wealthy-partners-drops-when-they-have-more-economic-power/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Women’s desire for wealthy partners drops when they have more economic power</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 17th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2527295123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a></em> suggests that what people look for in a romantic partner changes depending on their financial situation and the broader economic equality between men and women. The findings provide evidence that the traditional tendency for women to prefer wealthier partners might fade as women gain more economic power. This adaptability points to a high level of flexibility in human romantic desires.</p>
<p>For decades, scientists have debated why men and women often prioritize different traits in romantic partners. In many cultures, women tend to prefer partners with financial resources. Men tend to prioritize youth and physical beauty.</p>
<p>Some scientists argue that these differences stem from human evolution. This perspective suggests that ancient survival needs shaped modern minds. Because ancestral women faced the physical demands of pregnancy and nursing, they may have evolved to seek partners who could provide material resources.</p>
<p>Other scientists suggest these preferences are the result of cultural expectations. This perspective proposes that the traditional division of labor between men as providers and women as homemakers created these desires. According to this view, people simply adapt to the roles society assigns them.</p>
<p>Past research on this topic has mostly relied on observing natural differences across various countries. These observational methods have led to heavy disagreement because many cultural and economic factors are mixed together in the real world. For instance, wealthier women might report different preferences, but they also tend to live in wealthier, more equal societies.</p>
<p>“It is well-established that, on average, women care more about a suitor’s money than men do when dating, but the degree to which gender inequality explains this sex difference is quite hotly disputed,” explained study author <a href="https://psychologicalsciences.unimelb.edu.au/research/msps-research-groups/evo/lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Macken Murphy</a>, a PhD student in Khandis Blake’s lab at the University of Melbourne.</p>
<p>To address these academic questions and public anxieties, the research team designed a new test. “It’s a 36-year debate, one that has relied mostly on correlational evidence, and we felt an experimental investigation was necessary,” Murphy said. “Additionally, there is a modern concern that if women inflexibly prefer to ‘mate up’ financially, then as women get richer, they’ll have less options; we wanted to see if they relax that preference.”</p>
<p>To isolate the exact causes of these preferences, researchers tested a concept known as behavioral ecology. This concept proposes that humans flexibly adjust their behaviors and desires to their current environment to maximize their chances of success. The scientists wanted to see if altering a person’s income and the overall economic balance between men and women would directly change what they want in a mate.</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 807 participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They specifically selected English-speaking participants aged 18 to 45 years old, as this range represents the typical human reproductive window. After removing individuals who failed attention checks or did not meet all study criteria, the final sample included 602 people, with an average age of 32.</p>
<p>Each person was asked to imagine themselves living in a virtual society called Stamola. The scientists randomly assigned each participant to one of forty-five different economic scenarios within this virtual world. These scenarios varied in two main ways.</p>
<p>First, the scenarios altered the participant’s personal income percentile compared to others of their same sex. There were five possible income levels, ranging from the tenth percentile to the ninetieth percentile. Second, the scenarios changed the level of gender economic inequality.</p>
<p>The gender inequality conditions featured five different ratios of women’s to men’s earnings. In some versions of the virtual society, men made twice as much as women. In other versions, women made twice as much as men, or the two sexes earned exactly the same average amount.</p>
<p>Participants then answered a series of questions about their ideal long-term partner in this virtual environment. They rated the desirability of 35 different traits on a scale from zero to ten. They focused specifically on resource-related traits like being ambitious, having a good job, and being financially secure.</p>
<p>The participants also ranked the importance of specific traits against one another. This forced them to decide if financial security was more important than physical attractiveness or other qualities. Finally, they shared their preferred age range for a potential partner.</p>
<p>Additionally, participants indicated how important it was for their partner to be better off financially than they were. This concept of seeking a wealthier partner is often referred to as mating up.</p>
<p>The scientists found that when participants were assigned a lower personal income, they exhibited a stronger desire for partners with financial resources. Poorer individuals placed a higher priority on traits like having a good job. They also rated mating up as much more important.</p>
<p>The overall economic balance between men and women also influenced these desires. When participants were placed in a society where their own sex was economically disadvantaged, their preference for a wealthy partner increased. When women were given more resources than men in the virtual society, the usual differences between what men and women want in a partner shrank significantly.</p>
<p>The scientists noted that participants seemed highly aware of this strategic flexibility. Many reported consciously prioritizing resources when they were assigned poor financial conditions and focusing on love or personality when assigned wealth. The extent of this shift was striking to the research team.</p>
<p>“When women made more money than men, both men and women were equally interested in ‘mating up’ financially,” Murphy told PsyPost. “That surprised me; it’s a short manipulation of gender economic inequality favoring women versus a lifetime of gender economic inequality favoring men, so while I expected movement, I didn’t think that sex difference would go away.”</p>
<p>These findings indicate that “humans strategically adjust what they want in a romantic partner based on their environment to pick the best mate for their circumstances,” he explained. “In this case, it seems we strategically adjust how much we want a financially successful partner based on how much we need the money.”</p>
<p>While preferences for financial resources proved highly adaptable, other romantic desires remained static. Changes in the economic environment did not alter preferences for physical attractiveness, and another static trait caught the research team off guard.</p>
<p>“I was surprised there were no changes to age gap preferences,” Murphy said. “In the wild, it’s pretty well-documented that when women make more money, age gaps get smaller, and so I thought we would see age gap preferences get smaller in virtual environments where women made more money. But they didn’t, women wanted someone slightly older, and men wanted someone slightly younger, regardless of the gendered economics.”</p>
<p>Despite these results, the scientists caution against drawing extreme conclusions from the data. “Our research does not suggest that men and women would totally swap mate preferences if gender economic inequality were reversed; it just adds to the evidence that our mate preferences are strategically flexible,” Murphy noted.</p>
<p>Because the study relies on a simulated society, there are naturally questions about how well these stated preferences translate to actual dating behavior. “The first worry with this sort of experiment is that it won’t reflect what will happen in the real world, and I agree we should be cautious,” Murphy said. “However, it’s worth noting that these effects are consistent with the cross-cultural literature, which broadly indicates the sexes become more similar in their desire for a mate with money when gender equality is higher.”</p>
<p>He pointed to real-world examples that mirror their experimental results. “It’s also worth highlighting Malovicki-Yaffe’s research on conservative Haredi Jews. There, women are more likely to be the primary breadwinners than men, and on average, men care more about the finances of potential mates than women do. Before, you could say cases like this were correlation-but-not-causation; our experiment suggests causation.”</p>
<p>In the future, the researchers plan to investigate the broader consequences of this romantic flexibility. They aim to explore how changing preferences might influence actual dating behaviors. As women continue to gain economic power globally, understanding these shifting dynamics will help clarify whether public concerns about wealthy women struggling to find partners are grounded in reality.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2527295123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Partner preferences for resources adapt to income and gender economic inequality</a>,” was authored by Macken Murphy, Sylvia K Harmon-Jones, Auguste G Harrington, Robert C Brooks, and Khandis R Blake.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/children-with-obesity-face-a-steep-decline-in-adult-economic-mobility/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Children with obesity face a steep decline in adult economic mobility</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>Children who experience obesity are substantially less likely to move up the economic ladder as adults. A recent paper published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-026-01147-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Population Economics</a></em> shows that this health condition creates a lasting penalty that keeps young people from surpassing their parents’ income. The research highlights how physical health in early life acts as a hidden barrier to economic opportunity across generations.</p>
<p>Intergenerational mobility is the ability of children to grow up and earn a higher income than their parents did. This upward movement is a foundational piece of the American dream. Recent data shows that this upward mobility is declining across the United States, especially for people starting in lower income brackets.</p>
<p>At the same time, childhood obesity rates have climbed steadily. The researchers noticed a geographic overlap between these two trends. Regions like the American South and Midwest host the highest rates of childhood obesity and the lowest rates of economic mobility.</p>
<p>Maoyong Fan, an economist at Ball State University, led the research team. He worked alongside Yanhong Jin, an agricultural and health economist at Rutgers University, and Man Zhang, an economist at Renmin University in China. The team wanted to know if the physical weight of adolescents directly suppressed their future financial success.</p>
<p>“Childhood obesity isn’t just a health crisis,” said Yanhong Jin, a professor with the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and a coauthor of the study. “It is an economic mobility crisis.”</p>
<p>Most historical research on economic mobility has focused on neighborhood conditions, family structures, and early educational investments. “But few have considered its relationship to intergenerational mobility,” Jin said. “We wanted to explore the link between childhood conditions and intergenerational mobility to see what we can do,” she said.</p>
<p>To answer their questions, the researchers turned to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. This enormous dataset tracked thousands of adolescents from the mid-1990s well into their adult years. The team then linked those individual profiles to the Opportunity Atlas to track where the participants eventually settled.</p>
<p>Estimating the exact impact of obesity is normally incredibly difficult. Many social and environmental factors, like family wealth or local food options, influence both a child’s weight and their future income. Simply comparing the incomes of heavy and normal-weight children would not reveal the true cause of the economic disparity.</p>
<p>To isolate the specific effect of physical weight, the researchers examined the participants’ DNA. They looked at genetic markers known to predict a person’s body mass index, which is a standard measure of body fat based on height and weight. By relying on genetic predispositions, the team could bypass environmental influences like neighborhood grocery stores or parenting styles.</p>
<p>However, using genetic data comes with its own complications. Sometimes, a single genetic marker can influence multiple different traits at the same time. For example, some genetic markers associated with body mass index are also linked to a person’s educational potential or cognitive ability.</p>
<p>To prevent these overlapping traits from muddying the waters, the team mathematically stripped away any genetic signals related to learning and cognition. This left them with a refined genetic predictor that only influenced body weight. Using this isolated biological marker, they could accurately measure the economic toll of physical health.</p>
<p>The results of the analysis showed a pronounced financial penalty for heavy children. Participants who were obese in adolescence ended up much lower on the national income ladder than those who maintained a normal weight.</p>
<p>“If children are obese compared with normal weight children, assuming everything else is the same, their income ranking is about 20 percentile points lower relative to their parents,” Jin said. This massive drop means that early physical conditions can easily erase the financial gains made by previous generations.</p>
<p>The researchers also examined where the participants chose to live as adults. Individuals who were obese in childhood were less likely to move into neighborhoods offering strong economic opportunities. They were less likely to live in areas with high average incomes and less likely to find communities with low poverty rates.</p>
<p>The researchers explored exactly how this economic gap emerges over the decades. “The evidence points to lower educational attainment, persistent health problems and disadvantages within the labor market,” said Fan, a coauthor of the study. “These include higher reported job discrimination and adverse occupational sorting.”</p>
<p>The educational toll proved to be immense. Children carrying excess weight were far less likely to attain a college degree than their peers. They also completed fewer overall years of schooling, which heavily restricted their earning potential before they even entered the workforce.</p>
<p>Health problems also compounded over time, draining the participants’ economic resources. The study showed that childhood weight issues almost always persisted into adulthood. As these individuals aged, they reported more physical limitations and were frequently diagnosed with sleep apnea, dragging down their overall quality of life.</p>
<p>When these individuals did enter the workforce, they faced distinct disadvantages. Educated participants with a history of obesity were far less likely to secure high-paying management or business roles. Instead, they were often pushed into lower-paying service industry jobs where workers report higher rates of weight-based mistreatment.</p>
<p>“If you are obese in childhood, for whatever the reason, you have a penalty in your adult economic status,” Jin said. This penalty was not distributed equally across the population. The study found that the economic drop linked to childhood obesity was larger for girls than for boys.</p>
<p>The financial damage also hit harder for children from low-income families and those growing up in the South and Midwest. Affluent families could often buffer their children against these economic shocks by paying for better healthcare or higher education. Disadvantaged families lacked that safety net, allowing obesity to anchor their children in a cycle of limited mobility.</p>
<p>The researchers noted a few limitations to their data analysis. The income data was collected in broad ranges rather than exact dollar amounts, which could slightly distort the exact percentile rankings. Additionally, the researchers lacked genetic data from the participants’ parents.</p>
<p>Without parental genetic information, the team could not entirely rule out the influence of inherited traits that affect both family wealth and weight. The study also restricted its focus to white participants because the available genetic benchmarks were primarily based on people of European descent. Future research will need to include a wider range of racial and ethnic groups to see if the same patterns hold true across the entire population.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the research offers a broader way for policymakers to think about public health. “Interventions that reduce childhood obesity can deliver benefits well beyond lowering medical spending,” said coauthor Zhang. “They can support higher educational attainment, improve job prospects and increase upward economic mobility for the next generation.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-026-01147-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Weighing down the future: long-term effects of childhood obesity on intergenerational mobility</a>,” was authored by Maoyong Fan, Yanhong Jin, and Man Zhang.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/finnish-cold-water-swimmers-reveal-how-frigid-dips-cure-the-modern-rush/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Finnish cold-water swimmers reveal how frigid dips cure the modern rush</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>Taking a plunge into freezing water might seem like a recipe for panic, but regular cold-water swimmers use the extreme chill to master the art of mental stillness. A new study published in the <em>European Journal of Marketing</em> shows that individuals who regularly swim in icy water learn to intentionally slow down their perception of time, transferring this calming skill into their daily lives. These findings suggest that intense physical routines can offer a quick antidote to the fast pace of modern society, proving people do not need to escape to a long retreat to find peace.</p>
<p>Modern life is often defined by a frantic pace and constant digital connection. Many people seek out leisure activities that promise an escape from their everyday responsibilities. They hope for a chance to experience time passing more slowly. Activities that involve novel physical movements often help people detach from their racing thoughts and find a temporary oasis of relaxation.</p>
<p>This societal pressure pushes individuals toward experiences that provide a stark contrast to their usual routines. Some people seek out calm environments like quiet forests or secluded beaches to escape the noise. Others look for more intense physical challenges to force their minds into a state of submission. The ultimate goal is to find a reliable way to disconnect from a lifestyle that demands constant attention.</p>
<p>Tatsiana Padhaiskaya, a researcher at Aalto University in Finland, noticed that extreme physical pursuits are increasingly popular for stress relief. She wanted to understand exactly how consumers acquire the ability to slow down their busy minds. Padhaiskaya decided to look closely at cold-water swimming. This is a widespread activity in Finland that involves voluntarily plunging into outdoor water colder than 59 degrees Fahrenheit.</p>
<p>This specific activity provides a unique environment for studying physical learning. It happens in unpredictable natural settings and lacks strict rules, meaning swimmers must figure out how to adapt on their own. The researcher sought to capture the step-by-step process of how people turn a painfully freezing dip into a reliable method for mental clarity. The focus was on how individuals learn through direct physical interaction with an extreme environment.</p>
<p>To explore this phenomenon, Padhaiskaya interviewed 20 regular cold-water swimmers living in Finland. The group included 11 women and nine men ranging in age from 23 to 66. Their experience levels varied from relative beginners to veterans who had been swimming in icy waters for over 30 years. All the conversations took place during the winter swimming season to capture fresh memories.</p>
<p>During these deep conversations, the participants detailed their physical and mental reactions to the freezing water over time. Padhaiskaya analyzed these personal accounts to map out how the swimmers learned to gain control over their bodies. She viewed their experiences through the lens of physical learning. This is a process where people acquire new skills by directly engaging with and reacting to a challenging environment.</p>
<p>The researcher found that entering cold water initially triggers a massive shock to the body. Swimmers experience an intense rush of pain and an immediate struggle to catch their breath. One participant noted that the sensation felt like “1000 daggers punching your skin, or piranhas or something.” This sensory overload forces the brain to focus entirely on physical survival.</p>
<p>By shifting all attention to the body, the freezing water completely cuts off any lingering thoughts about work or daily chores. Many participants work sedentary jobs in front of computers, leading to a disconnect from their physical selves. The icy plunge reawakens their bodies and forces them into the present moment. This provides a sudden, welcome break from overthinking and daily anxieties.</p>
<p>To overcome the initial panic and pain, swimmers intuitively begin testing out different survival tactics. Some focus intensely on counting their swim strokes to distract themselves. Others adopt slow, rhythmic breathing exercises to steady their racing hearts. As they practice these coping mechanisms, they gradually learn how to override their natural flight responses.</p>
<p>Participants reported trying specific breathing patterns to manage the shock. Some learned to inhale for five seconds and exhale for five seconds. When they successfully applied these techniques, the feeling of gasping for air was replaced by a deep sensation of calmness. They literally forced their bodies into a state of relaxation despite the hostile environment.</p>
<p>Eventually, the swimmers start applying these successful calming techniques before they even touch the water. They might stand on the dock taking deep breaths to preemptively calm their nervous systems. This early preparation makes the cold water feel much less shocking upon entry. Some also take a moment to stand completely still and breathe after exiting the water, overriding the urgent urge to dress frantically.</p>
<p>Padhaiskaya discovered that this physical mastery actually alters how the swimmers perceive time. Once they conquer the initial panic, the chaotic rush of the freezing water transforms into a moment of extreme stillness. One participant described her rushed daily life as a “kind of tight headband around your head” that completely disappears in the water. Participants reported that time seemed to stop entirely while they were submerged.</p>
<p>The natural, uncontrolled environment allows for constant experimentation. Swimmers test their limits against changing weather conditions, sudden winds, and drastic temperature drops. They also experiment with varying amounts of time spent in the water. Sometimes these experiments fail, resulting in hours of uncontrollable shivering, which serves as a harsh lesson.</p>
<p>This ongoing trial and error builds a deep, physical intuition over the months and years. Experienced swimmers eventually abandon accessories like gloves or specialized shoes. They learn to read the subtle numbing sensations in their skin to know exactly when it is time to leave the water. They form a reliable connection between their internal physical cues and the boundaries of their endurance.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most surprising discovery was how this learned physical control translates into everyday life. Swimmers found that the techniques they used to suppress panic in the freezing water also worked to suppress anxiety during daily routines. They developed an internal physical memory of how to relax under pressure. When stressful situations triggered rapid breathing and a racing heart, they knew exactly how to shut those physical reactions down.</p>
<p>The ability to master these body signals ultimately reduces the fear associated with everyday tensions. Participants reflected that they no longer felt overwhelmed when facing tight deadlines or complicated family dynamics. Their brains had learned that intense physical arousal does not necessarily have to end in panic. This psychological shift provides a profound buffer against the crushing weight of modern expectations.</p>
<p>Participants compared the mental clarity gained from a short, frigid swim to the benefits of a prolonged meditation retreat. One swimmer noted that a ten-minute dip provided the same mental reset as a ten-day meditation course. The extreme nature of the cold water delivers rapid results, making it an incredibly efficient way to manage stress. The study highlights that individuals can build substantial mental resilience without having to abandon their busy modern schedules.</p>
<p>While these observations offer hope for stressed workers, the study comes with certain limitations. All the interviews took place in Finland, a country where cold-water swimming is highly normalized and frequently encouraged by the media and government. The results might not translate to cultures where extreme physical routines are viewed with suspicion. People in other regions might also lack safe access to natural waterways.</p>
<p>Padhaiskaya notes that the solitary nature of the swimmers’ routines likely aided their personal learning process. By swimming alone or acting independently, participants were free to experiment without worrying about the judgment of peers. Future research should examine whether group-based wellness activities offer the same opportunities for self-discovery. It is entirely possible that collective escapes exert pressure that limits individual exploration.</p>
<p>Additionally, it is unclear how long this newfound physical resilience lasts. Researchers have yet to determine if the ability to slow down fades away if an individual stops exposing themselves to the freezing lakes. Future studies could track people over longer periods to see if these coping mechanisms remain intact without regular practice. Other researchers might also explore different intense physical activities to see if they yield similar mental health benefits.</p>
<p>The study, “Learning to slow down: an inquiry of cold-water swimming in Finland,” was authored by Tatsiana Padhaiskaya.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/children-with-adhd-report-applying-less-effort-on-cognitive-tasks-compared-to-their-peers/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Children with ADHD report applying less effort on cognitive tasks compared to their peers</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547261428879" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Attention Disorders</a></em> suggests that children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder perceive their own effort on cognitive tasks differently than their neurotypical peers. Specifically, children with the condition report trying less hard across a variety of brain-teasing activities, even though they do not rate the activities as any more difficult. This provides evidence that self-reported effort could offer useful insights into the daily challenges faced by children with the disorder.</p>
<p>Metacognition refers to a person’s ability to monitor and regulate their own thinking processes. If you have ever realized that you need to re-read a paragraph because your mind wandered, you were using metacognition to evaluate your focus and change your approach.</p>
<p>Previous research shows that children with attention disorders often score lower on cognitive tests. These tests typically measure executive functions, which are the mental skills needed to pay attention, follow rules, and control impulses. However, the researchers wanted to know how these children subjectively experience these mental workouts in real time.</p>
<p>“There is a large literature showing that children with ADHD often perform differently than neurotypical children on cognitive tasks, especially tasks involving attention, intellectual abilities, and executive functioning. However, much less work has examined metacognitive monitoring, or subjective judgments about how a task is going, in relation to actual performance on these tasks,” said study author Adrian Torres Tacchino, a graduate student at York University.</p>
<p>“The methods used in this study offer a different approach for understanding how children with ADHD evaluate their performance, drawing on the metacognition and meta-reasoning literatures. There is already a literature showing that children with ADHD often overestimate their performance relative to neurotypical children, a pattern commonly referred to as Positive Illusory Bias (PIB). The current study extends this work by examining how children with ADHD perceive task difficulty and how hard they feel they tried on cognitive tasks.”</p>
<p>To explore this, the researchers recruited 80 children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old. This group included 38 children with a formal diagnosis of an attention disorder and 42 neurotypical children without the condition. Both groups had similar average intelligence scores and an equal spread of ages.</p>
<p>To test their mental processes, the children completed four distinct cognitive activities. The first activity was a brief intelligence test measuring verbal and nonverbal reasoning. The second was a mental flexibility activity, which required children to connect circles alternating between numbers and letters in a specific sequence.</p>
<p>The third activity was an interference control test. This required the children to name the color of the ink a word was printed in, rather than reading the written word itself, which tests the ability to filter out distracting information. Finally, the children completed an unstructured activity consisting of simple math, reading, and copying questions.</p>
<p>The items on the unstructured activity were scattered randomly on a large sheet of paper, and the examiner gave very little direction on how to proceed. This specific setup was designed to see how children perform when they have to organize their own progress without clear rules. Immediately after finishing each of the four activities, the children answered two questions about their experience.</p>
<p>They rated how difficult the activity felt on a five-point scale, using pictures of a person carrying either a light or heavy box to help them decide. They also rated how hard they tried on a separate five-point scale.</p>
<p>The researchers found that children with ADHD reported putting less effort into the activities compared to the neurotypical children. This lower effort rating was consistent across all four types of activities. Even on the unstructured activity or the standard intelligence test, the children with the condition felt they were not trying as hard as their peers. At the same time, the two groups of children did not show any differences in how difficult they found the activities overall.</p>
<p>Children with ADHD rated the challenge of the activities equally to the neurotypical group. Both groups agreed that the interference control activity, which required ignoring written words to state ink colors, was the most difficult and required the most effort. The lack of differences in task difficulty ratings between the two groups might partly be explained by a phenomenon known as the positive illusory bias.</p>
<p>This is a tendency for individuals with ADHD to under-recognize their own difficulties and rate their performance more favorably than objective tests would suggest. In this context, children with the condition might downplay how challenging a task feels, even if their actual performance suggests they are struggling. The scientists also noticed a pattern in how the children rated their experiences across the different tests.</p>
<p>A child’s rating of how hard they tried tended to remain similar across all four activities. This suggests that the amount of effort a child applies might be a steady personal trait, reflecting their general motivation or willingness to engage. In contrast, a child’s rating of an activity’s difficulty varied from test to test. This provides evidence that perceived difficulty is linked to the specific demands of each unique activity rather than a general mindset.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that these findings support the idea that perceiving a task’s difficulty and choosing to apply effort are two completely separate mental processes.</p>
<p>“One thing that stood out was that different types of subjective ratings may capture importantly different aspects of metacognitive monitoring,” Torres told PsyPost. “For example, ratings of effort and task difficulty were largely unrelated to each other. A child could say a task was not especially difficult but still report trying very hard on it, and vice versa. This suggests that there may be important differences not only between subjective ratings and objective performance, but also among different kinds of subjective ratings themselves.”</p>
<p>The researchers also found that a child’s actual performance generally had very little connection to how hard they felt they tried. Getting a high score did not necessarily mean the child felt they tried very hard. This disconnect suggests that self-reported ratings capture a unique aspect of a child’s experience that traditional test scores miss entirely.</p>
<p>“The key takeaway is that subjective ratings of effort on cognitive tasks by children with ADHD may tell us something important that is not captured by performance scores or informant reports alone,” Torres said.</p>
<p>While these findings offer helpful insights, there are some limitations to consider when interpreting the data. The study relied on a single subjective rating at the very end of each activity. Asking children to rate their effort multiple times during a test might capture a more accurate picture of their fluctuating attention.</p>
<p>Another limitation is the demographic makeup of the participants. The sample of children with the condition was predominantly male, which makes it difficult to know if the findings apply equally to girls. Research suggests that girls with the condition often experience more internalized symptoms, like low self-esteem, which could alter how they judge their own effort and performance. Future studies could benefit from exploring whether children underreport their effort as a self-protective mechanism.</p>
<p>“We would not want readers to interpret these findings as meaning that children with ADHD simply lack motivation or are not trying,” Torres noted. “Rather, we hope these findings are interpreted as showing that children with ADHD can provide useful subjective information about how they experience cognitive tasks. This is important because their own perspectives may offer insight that is not captured by performance scores alone. One possible interpretation is that sustaining mental effort may feel especially difficult or aversive for some children with ADHD. That idea is consistent with the DSM-5-TR description of ADHD, which includes ‘often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort.'”</p>
<p>“We hope this study encourages further empirical work on subjective ratings as a way of assessing metacognitive monitoring in relation to performance on cognitive tasks among children with ADHD. This approach may offer useful information for researchers and clinicians seeking to better understand how children with ADHD approach cognitive and academic tasks, including in structured testing settings and in the classroom.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547261428879" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Metacognitive Ratings on Cognitive Tasks: Task Difficulty and Effort Rating Differences in Children With ADHD and Neurotypical Children</a>,” was authored by Adrian P. Torres and Maggie E. Toplak.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/psychedelics-affect-sexual-intimacy-differently-depending-on-a-survivor-s-gender/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Can psychedelics help trauma survivors reconnect intimately?</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Apr 16th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>Researchers examining the intimate lives of trauma survivors have found that psychedelics have varied effects on communication and emotional connection during sexual encounters. A recent global analysis indicated that women who associated psychedelics with healing from sexual trauma reported better intimate communication than men with similar trauma histories. The findings were published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2025.2601165"><i>The Journal of Sex Research</i></a>.</p>
<p>Scientists are increasingly investigating substances like psilocybin, ayahuasca, and lysergic acid diethylamide to treat mental health conditions. These specific drugs interact with the serotonin system in the brain to alter perception and emotional regulation. By disrupting rigid patterns of thought, these substances can theoretically enhance emotional openness and interpersonal awareness.</p>
<p>When a person ingests a psychedelic, the substance modulates connectivity between key regions of the brain. This includes areas associated with self-referential thought and deep emotional processing. By interrupting normal functional connectivity, a person’s traditional cognitive boundaries temporarily soften. This specific mental state can encourage an unexpected reappraisal of deep-seated fears and interpersonal dynamics.</p>
<p>Many survivors of sexual violence experience lasting disruptions to their physiological and emotional responses. This trauma can manifest as sudden distress, general physical avoidance, or intense difficulty maintaining trust in intimate settings. Because traditional therapies and pharmaceutical treatments do not work for all survivors, some individuals turn to unregulated psychedelic use to navigate these lingering barriers.</p>
<p>Anecdotal reports suggest that the mind-altering effects of these drugs can help individuals process difficult memories and feel more connected to their partners. Yet empirical evaluations of how these substances actually perform during sexual encounters are scarce. Mason Levey, a public health researcher at the University of Queensland, led a study to quantify these subjective experiences.</p>
<p>The research team wanted to compare the experiences of trauma survivors who felt psychedelics aided their recovery against those who did not share that association. They focused entirely on self-reported outcomes related to sexual communication and emotional connection. The sample came from the 2022 Global Drug Survey, an anonymous questionnaire distributed globally.</p>
<p>The study analyzed responses from 675 participants who reported engaging in sexual activity within four to six hours of taking a full dose of a psychedelic. The average age of the respondents was about 33 years old, and the demographic heavily skewed toward employed, white individuals. To isolate the subset of trauma survivors, the team relied on a single survey question asking if a past psychedelic experience had ever helped the user cope with sexual trauma.</p>
<p>Within the dataset, 110 individuals reported that psychedelics had helped them cope with such trauma. The remaining 565 participants served as the comparison group. Participants rated how their most recent psychedelic-altered sexual experience affected elements like arousal, communication, and emotional connection on a scale ranging from very negative to very positive.</p>
<p>To ensure statistical stability, the researchers combined the extreme ends of the rating scales to eliminate categories with very few responses. They then used regression models to identify patterns, adjusting for differences in age and gender. The analysis revealed that trauma survivors were overall less likely to report relatively improved communication during a psychedelic sexual encounter compared to the non-trauma group. While a minor subset of survivors did select the highest possible positive rating for communication, that specific numerical difference was not statistically significant.</p>
<p>The team found similar results regarding emotional connection across the entire dataset. Overall, trauma survivors reported marginally higher levels of emotional connection during altered sexual episodes than the comparison group. However, the exact models indicated that this overall difference was not statistically significant.</p>
<p>A different picture emerged when the researchers focused exclusively on the internal dynamics of the trauma survivor group. Among those participants, women were noticeably more likely than men to report that psychedelics improved their communication with their sexual partners. Women in this group were also substantially more likely to report heightened emotional connection.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that differences between non-binary individuals and men in the trauma survivor group were not statistically significant. This suggests that the relational benefits of these substances among trauma survivors vary heavily based on gender. The authors posit that broader social norms regarding intimacy play a role in how different people react to these chemicals. Women are frequently socialized to prioritize emotional openness, which aligns with the forms of psychological vulnerability that psychedelics typically amplify.</p>
<p>Conversely, men might experience different baseline expectations for physical intimacy, potentially diluting the perceived emotional boost provided by the drugs. Researchers sometimes refer to an altered state of shared insight and mutual vulnerability between partners as psychedelic intimacy. Because psychedelics induce an emotional expansion on a neurobiological level, the resulting shifts might simply map better onto the typical intimacy scripts experienced by women.</p>
<p>Understanding these personal boundaries is necessary for developing effective harm reduction strategies. Many people who use these substances for trauma coping do so in underground networks, far from clinical oversight. In unregulated sexual environments, psychedelics present physical and psychological risks like boundary dissolution, high suggestibility, and sudden distress.</p>
<p>Changes to drug regulations are shifting the landscape of mental health treatment internationally. Jurisdictions like Oregon have established regulated frameworks for psilocybin use, and Australia recently reclassified specific psychedelics to authorize psychiatric prescribing for conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. As these therapies become more accessible, harm reduction advocates must prioritize messages acknowledging that these substances do not universally erase interpersonal trauma barriers.</p>
<p>The researchers outlined several limitations regarding their dataset. Because the study represents a single snapshot in time, the cross-sectional design cannot prove that the drugs physically caused the reported changes in intimacy. The survey relied heavily on retrospective self-reporting, meaning participants had to evaluate past altered states through the lens of their current psychological well-being. A person’s present mood can easily alter how past traumatic events or intimate encounters are remembered.</p>
<p>The comparison group in the study was also highly heterogeneous. This group likely included individuals who had never experienced sexual trauma alongside individuals who experienced trauma but did not find psychedelics useful. Combining these different experiences into a single control group obscures subtle trends in the data. The lack of standard definitions leaves room for vast variability in how people process their life histories.</p>
<p>The definition of sexual trauma was entirely determined by the participants, with no clinical verification or details regarding the severity of the past events. The survey question only asked if participants felt they had been helped by the substance, not if they took the drug with the strict intention of healing. Unmeasured variables like the context of the relationship, the specific type of drug consumed, and the dosage could have heavily influenced the outcomes.</p>
<p>Moving forward, researchers recommend conducting longitudinal studies that track individuals across extended periods. Observing these interpersonal shifts in a controlled clinical environment could clarify whether the emotional changes last beyond the immediate drug experience. Future studies could also formally standardize the measurement of psychedelic-induced intimacy to help build robust frameworks for those seeking alternative therapies for trauma.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2025.2601165">Psychedelics and Sexual Trauma: Effects on Communication and Emotional Connection</a>,” was authored by Mason Levey, Benjamin Bonenti, Timothy Piatkowski, Jason Ferris, Alex Frankovitch, Monica Barratt, Emma L. Davies, Adam Winstock, and Cheneal Puljević.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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